BCSA Sombo & Belt Wrestling March 2002

English Open Sombo Wrestling Championships

1^st British Belt Wrestling Championships

for BCSA Members

Saturday March 2^nd 2002

East Street Sports Centre

Sittingbourne, Kent

This was the 1^st time the BCSA has restricted its championships for members only. There were several reasons for this:

1) All BCSA members are insured with insurance law tightening it is becoming necessary to be careful that all fighters are insured

2) Running event just for BCSA members made the event smaller so therefore a lot cheaper this cost each competitor £5 for this they entered both events.

3) The event could be run at the BCSA HQ which has a permanent mat area of 9m x 9m

4) The BCSA is trying to get more people to referee so they held a referees seminar on the Thursday evening and they practised on the Saturday.

The event did not have a large turnout but that was to be expected; yet it produced some marvellous wrestling and a great atmosphere. These small events have more of a carnival, small village fete atmosphere; I should imagine this is what it was like 100 years ago. Sometimes trying to be hyper efficient loses that sense of what you are there, they become an event for the officials rather then an exhibition of Wrestling.

Competitors were divided into two sections Middle and Heavy. In the lightweight section, which was 70k up to, 90k Ashley Costa took the day by beating Colin Carrott in the final. Ashley was our big hope for the World Championship to be held in South America in October, he had been training very hard on weights, fitness and up his Judo and Sombo training. He now trains with Dartford judokwia where some of the best Judo players in the country meet. For the last few years the British Sombo federation had no real selection policy but this year National Coach Tim Thomas asked that he be allowed to select only players who were well trained and capable of winning bouts. The new BSF Executive Committee agreed with his recommendations. Ashley at 21 years of age was well placed to represent us at 68k until tragedy struck he attempted a rolling armlock but fell heavily on his shoulder breaking it, with part of his selection process being the British Open to held in Sittingbourne on May 5^th, Ashley will be out of the running for this year.

Ashley may be young but it is the older ones who seem to have the staying power in the fight of for the Silver and Bronze 42 year old Colin Carrot met 43-year-old Dave Hatch. Colin nearly lost his finger just before Christmas while doing groundwork it got caught in a jacket and literally snapped of Coach Martin Clarke pulled it back on for him. This was first competition since then (I wonder how many 20 year olds would have still come back) so he was not in peak condition while Dave who has been doing Sombo for just 18 months was looking really sharp. (he did not start Sombo and Judo till he was in his forties) The fight went the whole distance with each player scoring 6pts, Colin won the match because he score were higher quality ie Dave had a 4pt and two 1pts scores while Colin had a 4pt and 2pt score.

Heavyweight section saw John Clarke winning as expected but not in his normally flowing way at the age of 28 he seems to be letting himself go to seed, his fitness was bad, his timing was bad and at nearly 16stone he looked quite portly or as one of mates said he looked quite porky. Apart from all that John is an extremely good technician and very skilful and this led him to his victory. 46-year-old Peter Wise a training partner of John thought it going to be his day but in the opening seconds John caught Pete with a sneaky leg grab to score a total victory. Pete laughed and just said LUCKY ONE. His fight against Neil Arkley was extremely good; John normally beats Neil in training quite convincingly. Neil always improves when it comes to competition the buzz of the comps seems to inhances Neil’s play. The fight was going the whole distance without a score when Neil caught John of guard with a 1pt technique, this sent John into a flurry of attacks eventually he caught Neil with two 4pts and two 1 points.

First ever British Belt Wrestling Championships was big sounding name for a small event but everything has to start somewhere. Belt Wrestling is very similar to Canaria Lucha, Westmoreland and Cumberland. Each wrestler where shorts or trousers they hold on to the Belt when they have done this the match starts. The idea is to score 3 points to finish the match. This can be achieved by your opponent letting go of the belt or by making your opponent touch the mat with any part of his body accept for the soles of his feet. Sounds easy till you have a go keeping hold of the belt needs a great deal of strength, although the matches were only 3 minutes they are very physically demanding and all agreed it was deceiving how tiring it was. The match between Chris St John N Ireland (yes Chris flew over from Belfast just to compete) and Peter Wise was in a spectator sense the most boring as the match went the whole distance without a score but in a competitors sense the most interesting. The competitor could understand the difficulties when two players are so evenly matched.

Peter was a lot heavy and stronger then Chris but Chris had the advantage of having experimented in this style of wrestling before having won the British Police Cumberland & Westmoreland Wrestling Championships. With a stale mate at the end of the bout a further 2 minutes were allotted, the first player to score would win, if at the end of 2 minutes there were still a draw the lightest opponent would win. This gave Chris the advantage, Peter had to make the attacks, which he promptly did, and it was his mistake of dropping to the knees that gave Chris the Silver. John Clarke as expected won the event but he lost points because he released the grip on the belt.

Most improved players were Dave Hatch and Chris St John; thanks must go to Keith Costa who ran the event.

The British CombatSombo Association now operates in tandem with the International Budo Federation so for the price of one license you get the benefit of two associations. The BCSA will be organising a lot of different styles of wrestling such as:

1) CombatSombo Wrestling this style allows you do more submissions then Sombo Wrestling. This is proving a very popular style.

2) BCSA Jacket Wrestling only throws are allowed the scoring the same as Sombo but the Jackets are cut back to the shoulders. Very popular with Judo and Greco Roman specialists.

3) Combat Wrestling. Throws and submissions without a jacket

4) Submission Wrestling. With Jackets but ground fighting only. No throwing.

Most of these events will be held in either club Dojo’s or small venues to keep the Folk Style Wrestling atmosphere. Not all the events will be restricted to BCSA members. If anyone wants to train in these various style they can come to the East Street Sports Centre, Sittingbourne, Kent on a Tuesday and train under the watchful eye of World Champion Martin Clarke 8^th Dan for a mere £7 a session.

If anyone is interested in learning CombatSombo/Jiu Jitsu GrandMaster Martin Clarke will be running 10 week block courses at the Sports Centre on a Thursday night starting very soon for more information on any of the above tel: 0906 201 1403 or email Martin@Combatsombo.co.uk or www.combatsombo.co.uk or write to Martin Clarke EastLeigh House 118 East Street Sittingbourne Kent ME10 4RX

Sombo Results

Middleweight

1^st Ashley Costa Warriors Sittingbourne

2^nd Colin Carrott Spitfire Folkestone

3^rd Dave Hatch Heron Herne Bay

4^th James Burgess Tang Lung London

Heavyweight

1^st John Clarke Warriors Sittingbourne

2^nd Neil Arkley Newcastle

3^rd Chris St John RUC N Ireland

4^th Peter Wise Warriors Sittingbourne

Open: John Clarke

British Belt Wrestling

Middleweight

1^st Colin Carrott Spitfire Folkestone

2^nd Dave Hatch Heron Herne Bay

3^rd James Burgess Tang Lung London

Heavyweight

1^st John Clarke Warriors Sittingbourne

2^nd Chris St John RUC N Ireland

3^rd Peter Wise Warriors Sittingbourne

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